Online bookmaker license in Cyprus

Published:

May 1, 2019

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Online bookmaker license in Cyprus
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This year, major changes are taking place in the legal area of the web gambling industry on the European continent. One of the fundamental trends today is the introduction, practically, by each of the most significant European states of licensing.

A great demand for this service sector was given by the constantly increasing popularity of webbookmakers and casinos, which are based in European and offshore jurisdictions, including the jurisdictions of Gibraltar, Malta, Curacao, Costa Rica.

The “palm” in limiting personal trading platforms, of course, belongs to the largest European countries, namely Spain, Italy, France, and Great Britain.

Starting in the 2000s, these countries began to organize financial institutions that regulate gambling activity on the network and block the entrance to trading floors for offshore operators.

Thanks to the niche position of the web gaming industry, Europe has stopped trying to control it at the national level. This is why there are now outsiders in the development of a personal legal framework. For example, the Dutch state only in July 2016 was able to form the necessary bill.

And it is unlikely to be in effect from 2018. Cyprus is another country that joined this trend late. This is an insular beautiful country that adopted a law on the regulation of gaming activities almost ten years ago – in 2012.

But due to numerous factors, Cyprus began to try to fully regulate the activities of bookmaker companies in the network only since 2016.

For these tasks, an organization such as the National Betting Authority was specially created. The latter said that it has been making decisions to issue licenses to webbookmakers starting October 3, 2016.

Many tourists from the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States who came to rest in Cyprus know firsthand that all kinds of games are extremely popular among Cypriots.

Almost on every main street of a large town there will be at least a couple of gambling organizations – rooms for playing keno or bingo, betting points of bookmakers.

More recently, in the South of Cyprus was a bill that prohibited gambling in casinos.

Fans of such entertainment had to cross the dividing line and travel to the northern part of the country to get to one of the casino centers (here the gambling business is controlled by the Turkish administration). But this ban was lifted not so long ago – in order to attract investors to build an integrated casino resort.

Cyprus interested in financially stable licensing applicants

It is clear that the extremely high popularity of the gambling business is one of the fundamental points, because of which the legislators have set an extremely high bar for entering trading floors.

Since the obligation and condition to form an authorized capital in the amount of five hundred thousand euros, backed by a guarantee from banking institutions also for five hundred thousand euros, this is quite a lot, not only in terms of the size of a state with a population of less than one million people.

This is five to seven times more than in Malta and the UK – in the leading jurisdictions.

Licensed payment obligations

Licensed payment obligations of thirty thousand euros per year for an annual license and forty-five thousand euros for a two-year licensing would not be considered low. Add to this the gambling taxation of thirteen percent of the gross gambling yield.

Ten percent of the tax rate will go directly to the treasury. The remainder of three percent will be split between foundations that support sports federations and foundations that prevent and treat gambling addiction.

The regulator, which has set such considerable conditions, gives a very accurate signal that Cyprus is only interested in financially stable licensing applicants.

Among such contenders, it is logical that large regional operators of land-based bookmaking are included. In addition, the above conditions do not pose a problem for global leaders in the Internet field.

So will Cyprus be able to attract leading operators and licensing to the states, repeating the past successful experience in the regional scope of Malta, another Mediterranean actively developing island nation?

Our company has a cautious opinion on this matter and has an optimistic position in this regard.

On the one hand, besides the high price, licensing is still limited by the product line. The creators of legislative acts prefer to “remove” not only the casino game line, but also such types of spot bets as sports betting on dog and horse races, spread-betting.

In addition, regulators are demanding to apply the web resource specifically with the domain – .com.cy

But, in addition to such significant shortcomings, in contrast, one can name super important favorable elements. According to the incoming information flow, the commission has wide sources for prompt consideration of well-executed applications from professional firms.

The most positive assessment is from a couple of weeks to the issuance of preliminary approval, which is much faster than other law firms.

In addition, the NKB does not put forward requirements for the creation of a full-fledged infrastructure of operators’ servers on the Cyprus Peninsula. In fact, just one server is enough to control regulatory activities.

But perhaps the most important advantage, in this case, is the linguistic and geopolitical characteristic and peculiarity of Cyprus. In the Republic of Cyprus, three languages are recognized by law – Greek, Turkish and English.

ocal island licensing is perhaps the wisest decision when choosing operators that target the market of nearby countries with the appropriate languages. In terms of reputation, the Cypriot island has recognizable characteristics for audiences on the eastern side of the Mediterranean.

In addition, the emergence of officially licensed Turkish-language websites in European countries is perhaps another attractive moment for gambling fans from Turkey’s large diaspora in Western Europe.

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